Wireless communication devices often access Internet or intranet services through a proxy server rather than accessing such services directly. These services often communicate using a protocol different from that normally used by the wireless device. For example, services may use Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to send and receive messages over hypertext transfer protocol/transmission control protocol (HTTP/TCP) which may be unsupported or cumbersome for the wireless device. Typically, if a wireless device needs to communicate with a server to access a service (e.g. web service), the wireless device does not construct/parse SOAP messages and send/receive SOAP messages over HTTP/TCP itself. Instead, the wireless device communicates structured data to a proxy server (such as a Blackberry Mobile Data System by RIM) that will construct/parse SOAP messages and send/receive SOAP messages over HTTP/TCP on behalf of the wireless device.
In order for the proxy server to communicate with services on behalf of the wireless device, it needs to have access to private information associated with the wireless device. Representative private information associated with the wireless device may, for example, include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections, HTTP cookies, Windows NT™ LAN Manager (NTLM)-authenticated connections and subscriptions. In order to protect privacy of the information, there is a requirement for a secure connection between the wireless device and the proxy server.
While corporate or enterprise networks that enable wireless access to proxy servers typically provide data encryption and privacy solutions for hosted wireless devices, such is generally not the case in retail implementations. For example Google Talk™ or Proxy-HTTPS services, both of which may involve an exchange of private information between a wireless device and the proxy server, provide little in the way of data encryption and privacy other than the standard, relatively weak encryption provided by the wireless networks.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.